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Park Hoppin’ with Paul Ruben
Swimming with fishes Dark and restored A W
going to go to Pennsylvania’s PoconoMountains, which is best known for its skiing and other outdoor activities. I don’t ski, and I’m not going to stand outside in freezing January temperatures. I had a better idea. I was going to Kalahari Resorts Poconos where they have a giant indoor waterpark to splash around in during the day and adult beverages waiting for me in the evening. I was headed to Kalahari to experience their new underwater virtual reality
snorkeling experience, DIVR by Ballast Technologies. Read about it on pages 46 & 46. Inside the waterpark the temperature was a toasty 84º F (29º C), the perfect alternative for a winter day. While amusement parks may have a variety of low capacity attractions that can be offered for an upcharge, before now waterparks have not. DIVR changes that.
It transforms any pool into a fantastic adventure where guests can go deep sea diving, flying, or on a spacewalk. It combines the weightlessness of being in water with the immersion of virtual reality, resulting in an unprecedented full-body sensory experience. Ballast’s partner, Sub Sea Systems, is hoping to upgrade some of these systems to the DIVR+ version with thruster and sensory bubble effects. Arriving at the DIVRsite within the
hile visiting Knoebels Amusement Resort in Elysburg, Pennsylvania, I took advantage of the opportunity to ride Black Diamond, pictured (below left). I love roller coasters and dark rides, and Black Diamond is both. It’s a gravity-powered ride whose cars travel at walking speed through an eerie coal mine themed dark ride. It makes me very happy. The Black Diamond is a three-story haunted tour through a coal mine. Riders are carried in replica coal mine cars powered by gravity. Before being moved and re-themed, it operated as the Golden Nugget Mine Ride. The Golden Nugget Mine Ride originally opened in 1960 on the newly constructed ocean side section of Hunt’s Pier in Wildwood, New Jersey. The Golden Nugget was built three stories high with the top floor giving riders a mine car ride through the “desert.” The classic coaster ride was specially constructed for Hunt’s Pier by the Philadelphia Toboggan Company (PTC) and was engineered by John Allen. Bill Tracy designed the ride’s theme through Amusement Displays.
ll the leaves are brown, and the sky is grey, so what am I going to do on a winter’s day? One thing I wasn’t going do is to start singing California Dreaming by TheMamas and the Papas. No, I was
Kalahari waterpark, I was fitted with a waterproof virtual reality mask, which consisted of two eyepieces, a large screen smart phone, speakers, and an attached snorkel to breathe through while in the water. A very helpful attendant, Nate Olsen, gave me a single-use mouthpiece that I placed on the end of the snorkel, and fitted me with a floatation belt around my waist. Tethered to an anchor at the bottom of the pool, the belt helped me keep comfortably afloat. Kalahari offered three different video experiences, with more planned in the
It was one of the more original amusement park experiences of the time. There were two short lift hills that carried the mine cars to the roof of the structure. The Golden Nugget’s track was constructed of steel. Not only was it the first and only steel-tracked roller coaster designed and built by PTC, it was only the second steel roller coaster in the country. The first, Disneyland’s Matterhorn Bobsled by Arrow Development, debuted the previous year. The Pier changed hands several times and was eventually purchased by Morey’s Piers. The Morey’s pondered ways to restore the Golden Nugget either as an operating attraction or in some other form. Ultimately, it was decided the costs to rehabilitate the aging ride were prohibitive. “I always thought that the Golden Nugget at Hunt’s Pier was one of the best family rides out there,” recalled Dick Knoebel. “When it closed in approximately 2000, I tried to obtain it from the Morey’s for over five years. When they announced its impending destruction, I made a last ditch effort to obtain it and was successful. But I know a gold mine theme would not fit in here at Knoebels. Since we are on the edge of the Anthracite Coal Region, it was an obvious choice to theme it as coal mine and we housed it in a replica coal breaker.” On January 26, 2009, Morey’s Piers announced that Knoebels’ Amusement Resort had purchased the Golden Nugget track and trains. The coaster was modified, and the ride was rethemed and rebuilt. The Black Diamond opened briefly in October 2011, and reopened when the park opened for 2012 season.
future. In the first I was swimming with ocean fish. I believe this is computer generated imagery, and as I turned my head left and right the scene changed appropriately. Then I thought I would test it to see if my hands and arms would appear if I waved them in front of my face; this is virtual rather than real reality, so they did not. At the end of the video I stood up and Olsen transferred a second, and later a
third video. These were fascinating, too. In one I was floating in outer space at an abandoned space station, watching the planets float by, and in the second interacted with a whale and an octopus back in the ocean. All the time there were four or five other guests in the pool, all tethered in place, enjoying their own adventures. So, what did I learn from this? For one thing, being weightless while
experiencing virtual reality enhances the experience. Second, DIVR is a sure-fire addition to any waterpark, indoors or outdoors. Third, while breathing through a snorkel tube, one should always keep the tube’s upper end above water.
Since purchasing the ride, Knoebels has reconstructed it and created a whole new experience. There are plenty of runaway mine trains, but those are simply coasters. I wish more parks would develop similar dark mine- themed coaster rides, but only one has. It’s themed as a diamond mine. That, of course, is the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train that opened in 2014 at Walt Disney World’s Magic Kingdom. It makes me very happy, too.
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